The
Metabolic Syndrome and the Effects of CLA in Obesity, Diabetes and Lipoprotein
Disorders: The Quebec Experience
Benoît Lamarche
Institute on Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods, Laval University, QuÈbec,
Canada
The health hazards of obesity are well established. However, the fact that all obese individuals are not at equal risk of developing a disease is being increasingly recognized. The regional distribution of body fat has been identified as a very important component of the obesity-related health hazards. Among obese individuals, those who accumulate fat preponderantly in the abdominal area are more likely to present several metabolic perturbations of the metabolic syndrome such as increased plasma triglyceride and apolipoprotein B levels, an elevated total cholesterol/HDL cholesterol ratio, reduced plasma HDL cholesterol concentrations and small, dense LDL particles. This talk will focus on the risk associated with specific features of the metabolic syndrome using data from the Quebec Cardiovascular Study, an on-going prospective study of traditional and non traditional risk factors of ischemic heart disease (IHD) in men. Recent data from a nutritional intervention aimed at investigating the impact of CLA on several risk factors for IHD will also be reviewed.
